


Kyle in Captivity

by wettermark



Category: South Park
Genre: Bananas, M/M, Nipple Torture, Non-Consensual Bondage, Role-Playing Game, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 03:17:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2836016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wettermark/pseuds/wettermark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyle is captured during the Stick of Truth game and Cartman "tortures" him for information with frozen bananas and sexual innuendo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kyle in Captivity

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the kink meme a while back. They're teenagers in this; they're just still playing this game very seriously because they're dorks.

Kyle never should have eaten that brownie. He knows that Butters works for Cartman, but he didn't expect Butters' devotion to extend to the corruption of baked goods offered after school. When he wakes up in Kupa Keep, tied to a chair inside Cartman's tent, it only takes him a few groggy minutes to realize what happened. A roofied brownie from seemingly innocent Butters: he should have known.

"Cartman!" he shouts, struggling against the ropes that are holding him to the chair. He's not even in his Elf King costume, goddammit. "You asshole! I'm gonna--" He stops himself before he says _Tell my Mom_ , because that's just too fucking lame. Still, he's actually kind of scared when he hears voices outside the tent, the laughter of Cartman's men. Should he scream for help for real? Is this just part of the game? The ropes holding him in place are a little too real, especially without the comfort of his crown on his head, but it's not like Cartman hasn't tied him up before.

"Sounds like our visiting dignitary is waking up," Cartman says from outside the tent. Kyle goes tense when a couple of guys laugh wickedly. Where is Butters the Merciful? Does he even know about this? Cartman could have slipped a roofie in Butters' brownie batter without telling him.

"You fucking bastard," Kyle says when Cartman enters looking smug, his stupid wizard's hat cocked in its usual manner, robes straining to contain his pillowy girth. "You can't do this. It's not fair, it's against the rules!"

"Ah, Kyle. Look at you, struggling in your bonds, telling me about the rules, when we both know you've broken the Lost Forest treaty."

"What! I have not! Let me go, Cartman, and bring this before the tribunal--"

"To hell with the tribunal, Kyle! This is between you and me. Human to Elf. I knew you would never come here to discuss the situation without your guard dog Stan, so I took matters into my own hands."

"You had Butters poison me." Kyle grits his teeth and tries not to show how completely incapacitated he is, not to mention terrified, but he can't seem to stop involuntarily twitching against his bonds, wanting to spring free. "That's illegal in the real world, asshole."

"Ha!" Cartman smiles, showing his left canine tooth, which always calls to mind the times that he's bitten Kyle over the years. Once in pre-school, and again more recently. "The real world? Isn't this your real world, Kyle? Where you rule over your pathetic minions and make Stan kiss your ring?"

"This is demented," Kyle says, which is a weak insult, but he was thrown by the mention of Stan and kissing, two things he never ever wants to discuss with Cartman. "Just tell me what you want and let me go."

"I want information, Kyle." Cartman leans in and touches Kyle's chin, stroking the underside while Kyle tries and fails to jerk away from him, snarling.

"What information?"

"I need you to tell me where one Stanley Marsh spent last summer." 

"Why?" Kyle goes still, trying to keep an incriminating expression off his face. "Why the hell would you possibly need to know that?"

"So I can use it against him in the heat of battle, duh. Also, I've just been wondering. Everyone has. And if anybody knows the secret, it's you, the super best friend." 

"Then this isn't even about the game. You're just trying to get dirt on Stan? You're pathetic. Do whatever you want to me. I'm not saying shit."

"So you think." Cartman is still smiling in a very troubling way. "We'll see how loyal you feel after I've used my interrogation methods on you for a few hours." 

Kyle's heart is thudding wildly, but he is confident that he can keep his word: he won't tell Cartman about Stan and last summer, no matter what. And it's not like Cartman has the balls to actually hurt him, with a backyard full of witnesses outside the tent. Still, he's nervous when Cartman turns his back and goes to a styrofoam ice chest near his "throne." Kyle has underestimated Cartman's creative sadism before, to his own detriment. 

"Let's start with something easy," Cartman says, rummaging around in the chest. He comes up with two bananas and grins at Kyle. "A snack."

"Ooh, I'm so scared. Yeah, I hate bananas, but they're not going to convince me to betray Stan. Nice try." 

"Ah, Kyle, I'm only trying to prepare you for what you're about to endure. Giving you some vitamins." Cartman cracks open one of the bananas, which appears to be frozen. "So, go ahead," he says, stripping the frozen peel off as he walks toward Kyle. "Open up."

Kyle clamps his mouth shut and glowers at Cartman. 

"Ey, no fair," Cartman says, bumping the tip of the banana against Kyle's closed lips. "Don't make me throat punch you, Kyle. Alright, fine, here - I gotta go in for dinner in two hours. If you can endure my interrogation until then without spilling the secret, I'll let you go. But you have to play along! If you don't, I'll throat punch you and shove this thing in your mouth anyway."

Kyle considers his options, beginning to tremble. Stan will be wondering where he is, certainly. He'll burst in here with Kyle's elvish army any moment now. Maybe if he just plays along, he can minimize the damage done until then. He takes a deep breath and pushes it out through his nose, relaxing his lips. He keeps his eye on the vile banana as he opens them, just slightly. Cartman shoves it in until Kyle chokes, the freezing temperature of the fruit stinging his tongue. 

"There you goooo," Cartman says, using the pseudo-sweet voice that makes Kyle's blood boil. He pulls the banana back out, letting Kyle cough a few times before reinserting it. "Get it nice and warm so you can eat it," Cartman says. "Yeah, that's right." He slides the banana out slowly, then back in, just shy of stuffing the tip down Kyle's throat. Kyle feels himself getting very red, and the urge to wretch at the taste of the defrosting banana is hard to tamper down. "That's a good boy, Kyle," Cartman says. 

Kyle glowers up at Cartman, an uncomfortable feeling flip flopping around in his stomach. It's like when they were kids: that old, awful weirdness. That week when Kyle was Cartman's slave.

"Is it soft enough for you to take a bite?" Cartman asks, still speaking in a cloying voice and smiling down at Kyle with unconcealed, malicious glee. "Go ahead, Kyle. Yummy, yummy. Eat my banana."

Kyle bites into the banana, which is still firm from being frozen, ice crystals crunching between his teeth. He chews it and swallows, embarrassed that his eyes are already starting to burn with what might become frustrated tears. He'd managed to forget what this felt like, mostly: being at Cartman's mercy. The relief of submitting when it seemed to be the only choice. The other stuff that followed.

"That's good," Cartman says when Kyle takes another bite, wanting to get this over with and hoping Cartman won't make him eat a second one. "Take your medicine, Kyle. What did bananas ever do to you? You're afraid of bananas, and Stan is afraid of snakes. Ever thought about that?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Kyle's voice is ragged from choking when Cartman stabbed his throat with the unthawed banana. He can see Cartman's eyes change slightly when he hears this: a sign of weakness, a demonstration that he's already leaving marks, doing damage. 

"Just making conversation," Cartman says, and he touches Kyle's cheek in a tender way that makes Kyle snap his head back. Cartman smirks again and peels the banana a bit more, exposing another frozen segment. He sticks it in Kyle's mouth and hums under his breath as he -- there's no point denying it -- fucks Kyle's mouth with the fruit. "Good," Cartman says. "Get it nice and warm. Mhmm-hmm."

Kyle's lips are starting to feel numb from the cold, and when he coughs around the banana after a sudden hard thrust the tears well up irreversibly. He pinches his eyes shut tightly, hating that Cartman is watching tears streak down his cheeks. It's just the coughing, and the humiliation, and the fact that he can feel his nipples stiffening under his t-shirt, a kind of low frequency interest buzzing in his balls. 

"Aww, little flower," Cartman says, and he swipes his thumb over Kyle's left cheek, then his right. "Look at you, shaking like a leaf. Take another bite, Kyle. That's good. So obedient. Like old times."

Kyle pinches his eyes shut again, not wanting to think about that. They were ten; almost eleven. The Ginger Cow. Kyle had felt so noble, and he'd felt other things, too. He had only been 'enslaved' to Cartman for a week, but things had escalated quickly. He's surprised, all the time, that Cartman didn't go any further than he did. Thinking about this ignites a small, probably futile hope: there might be some part of Cartman that wants to protect him even while demolishing him. He eats more banana, gasping for breath between swallows, his mouth open, lips tingling from the cold. Every time Cartman reinserts the banana he grunts softly, and Kyle is both repulsed and sort of hypnotized by the sound. When the thing is finally gone, all of it contained in Kyle's stomach, he feels like he'll retch from the aftertaste but manages to keep his mouth shut, rubbing his lips together to get the feeling back. Cartman throws the banana peel over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on Kyle's. 

"You'll pay for that," Kyle says, wanting to play the game, just the goddamn game and nothing else. "Grand Wizard." 

"Oh, shut up. Really? You want another banana? 'Cause I got four more in that cooler." 

"I'll puke on your shoes if I have to eat another one."

"Not if I jump out of the way first. But what do you say, Kyle? Want to tell me Stan's whereabouts last summer yet?"

"Never."

"Alright then, okay." Cartman clasps his hands behind his back and paces a bit. Kyle remembers this part from his period of enslavement, how Cartman would get kind of worked up over the smorgasbord of choices when it came to how to punish Kyle, almost to the point that he'd get panicked and stuttery, everything he wanted suddenly too possible. Kyle figures it's not a good sign when Cartman goes over to the tent flap and ties it shut securely, blocking out the last sliver of sunlight. Inside the tent, there are lanterns lit. Kyle fidgets in his restraints, thinking of the hot wax. "Plan B, then," Cartman says.

He walks over to the cooler again, but this time he opens another box that's sitting beside it. Kyle strains to listen to the noises from outside the tent, wanting to hear Stan crossing the backyard with a battle cry, ready to kill Cartman for this. He had been, back then, too, after the Ginger Cow was exposed and Kyle was released from his fart eating servitude. Kyle had been kind of messed up afterward. Stan made assumptions about why, and he was half right. 

"What's that?" Kyle asks when Cartman walks over to him carrying a narrow black box. 

"An instrument of torture," Cartman says, cheerfully. "Let's just - hmmm, I can't get your shirt off without untying your hands, can I? Unless." Cartman reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a pocket knife. Kyle's heartbeat skyrockets. 

"Don't," he says when Cartman takes hold of Kyle's t-shirt, a dark blue one with long sleeves. "Cartman, stop. My mom will kill me."

"Oh, she will? Good."

He slices his way up the shirt, cutting it raggedly from the hem to the collar. Kyle holds in a whine of protest, knowing that it's useless to try to reason with him. Cartman's pupils have grown very round and black: he's in control and he can smell it in the air, like a wild animal scenting the fear of its prey. Kyle huffs angrily when Cartman pushes the two sides of his cut open shirt aside, exposing Kyle's heaving chest. His nipples are still hard, but it's cool enough outside that they would be, anyway, probably. He squeaks when Cartman flicks the left one.

"Look at you, all excited," Cartman says. 

"I'm cold, you idiot. You just shoved a freezing banana in my mouth." 

"Call me an idiot again and you'll get something else in there." 

"Ha ha, yeah right. You want sexual assault charges filed against you? Or would you prefer to murder me to keep my mouth shut? I don't think so." 

"I didn't say I'd put my dick in your mouth, Kyle, but of course your mind went there, you come-hungry slut." He gives Kyle a dark look once those last three words are out, and reaches for the black box. "Ready to tell me, or ready to be tortured?" he asks, flipping open the box's little golden clasps.

"Cut the crap, Cartman. We both know I'm not telling you shit."

"I don't know, Kyle, do we really know that? Let's find out."

He removes the item from the box, and Kyle groans when he sees what it is. Nipple clamps, probably from Liane's collection. Cartman grins and takes hold of the two clamps, pinching them open and shut in a succession of quick flurries. Kyle's cock starts to fill with blood, his nipples tingling as dread and anticipation floods through him. 

"I could use jumper cables," Cartman says. "But you're so delicate, that might kill you." He attaches the right clamp first, making it tight. Kyle grits his teeth; it hurts more than he expected. When Cartman attaches the second one to his other nipple, Kyle cock twitches, though this one hurts just the same. "There we go," Cartman says, giving the string between the clamps a tug. Kyle shouts; he wasn't expecting this kind of pain, the knifing kind, or maybe he just never realized how sensitive his nipples are. The tears are back, just at the corners of his eyes. "Tell me where that hippie bastard went last summer," Cartman says, and he pulls harder, but this time Kyle is able to hold in his scream.

"No," Kyle says. "You don't get to know about him. Stan is mine. And I'm his," he says, looking up into Cartman's face, defiance making his tears dry up. Cartman grunts and tugs so hard on the clamps that Kyle can't stop himself from shouting, though he knew that would happen.

"Yours how?" Cartman asks. "Your butt buddy? Please. He fucks chicks. I've seen it."

"Bullshit," Kyle says, laughing. He's staring at Cartman's sneakers, his hands in fists as he waits for the next tug, erection waning somewhat.

"Bullshit? I don't think so. Saw him in the backseat of his dad's car with Lola Perkins. Fucking that bitch hard."

"Yeah, right." Well, maybe. Kyle doesn't have the heart to ask Stan about his conquests. "Anyway. You know what I mean. Me and Stan. It's bigger than that. Nothing would make me tell."

Cartman is quiet then, thinking. He's holding the string connecting the clamps taut, but just enough to make Kyle feel the pressure, not the pain, though his nipples hurt anyway, throbbing and raw. The pause gives Kyle's cock time to harden again, which is maybe the point. He's not sure why Cartman hasn't mentioned it. It's impossible that he hasn't noticed.

"I could make you do anything," Cartman says, which is the same thing he said that day. 

It was the fourth day of Kyle's servitude to him. Kyle had shaved his head, and something about this seemed to anger Cartman profoundly, or maybe it was more Kyle's attitude change, his sudden embrace of his helplessness for the sake of world peace. After a day of farting on him in public, Cartman had taken Kyle back to his room after school. He paced around a bit while Kyle sat on Cartman's bed, doing his best impression of someone who was at peace with his fate, almost buying it.

"Quit staring at me, bitch," Cartman said. He crossed the room and slapped Kyle on the face, which somehow took him completely off guard, maybe because it had taken four days for Cartman to physically attack him. The shock of it kept Kyle's eyes from watering when his cheek stung. Despite being ordered not to, he stared up into Cartman's face, unthinking. Something weird was happening to him, in the aftermath of the slap: he felt relief, or clear-headedness, a real resignation. Cartman, meanwhile, looked worse off for it, a dark pink blush bleeding into his cheeks, his breath coming hard through his nose.

"Take off all your clothes," Cartman said.

It was the slap that made Kyle calm in response to this command, but he was curious, too. He'd been afraid since the start that Cartman would do something like this, and now he was going to find out just how it was going to end. He stood and took off his shirt, pants, socks, underwear. The nakedness made him feel even more monk-like and holy, and he stood there with his arms at his side, staring at Cartman, waiting. 

Cartman had taken on an ill look: feverish, or maybe queasy, he seemed to be suffering. He looked Kyle up and down five times, his fat fingers twitching. 

"Crawl around on the floor and moo," Cartman said, but as soon as Kyle started to kneel down, Cartman grabbed his arm and yanked him back up. He pushed Kyle onto the bed, and only then did Kyle start to feel scared. It was sudden and intense, like an ice bath. "Just sit there," Cartman said, pointing a finger at Kyle and backing away. "Sit there naked and don't move a muscle."

Kyle did as he was told, increasingly worried about how unraveled Cartman seemed. He was walking around the room, breathing hard, touching his hair. Kyle's heart beat was like a frantic sparrow trapped in his chest, but he concentrated on breathing deeply and evenly, because that was a thing monks did. A person could defile a monk and still never touch the purity of his selfless soul. Thinking that only made Kyle more scared about what was about to happen to his physical body, however.

And then Cartman left the room.

Once he was gone, Kyle sat there in stunned silence for a few moments, not daring to cover himself, in case this was some kind of test. After ten minutes had passed, he held Cartman's pillow over his crotch. An hour later, when he heard Liane coming home from work, he put his clothes back on and walked downstairs, nervous about what he might find. He was almost expecting Cartman to be hanging from the back of a door on a belt, but no: he was sitting in front of the TV, eating handfuls of Kettle Korn and drinking from a two liter of Dr. Pepper. Liane was humming in the kitchen, putting away groceries.

"I have to go home," Kyle said when Cartman refused to look at him. "Uh. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, whatever," Cartman said. He glanced at Kyle quick, almost like he was scared of him. "Get the fuck out," he said, mumbling. "I'm busy."

Staring at Cartman now, Kyle knows he's thinking about that day, too. This redoubles Kyle's nervousness: maybe Cartman is looking at this as his second chance to really do some damage, now that he's gone through puberty and he can attach specific sex acts to his sadistic urges. Whatever he's thinking, Kyle can tell that he's feeling overwhelmed by the sense of opportunity, not sure what to try next. Kyle holds Cartman's gaze, not wanting him to look down at Kyle's left foot, which he's been wiggling back and forth as subtly as possible. The restraint there is loosening.

"Have you had enough?" Cartman asks, tugging on the nipple clamps again. Kyle grits his teeth and clenches his fist more tightly. His nipples are throbbing, both of them on fire between the sharp points on the clamps. "Are you ready to tell me Stan's secret?"

"Why are you so obsessed with Stan? Watching him have sex with Lola, allegedly, and now you want to know gossip about him?"

"It's for the game, dumb ass. It's fucking leverage!"

"Bullshit. There are other ways to get to upset him in the game."

"Yeah, like what?"

"Like this. Hurting me." 

Something mellows in Cartman's eyes and then quickly reignites.

"He'll want to kill you when he finds out you poisoned my brownie and tied me up," Kyle says. "Never mind the other stuff."

"The other stuff?" Cartman grins. "You're going to tell him you sucked on my banana like a good little captive? That your dick got hard when I played with your girly nips?"

Kyle has no snappy retort for that, his face burning as hotly as his tortured nipples. Cartman laughs, and Kyle takes a peek at his pants when he adjusts his wizard belt. It's too shadowy to tell, but he'd be willing to bet that Cartman is hard, too. 

"Stan's gonna kill you, either way," Kyle says. "And your men. Everybody in this camp." 

"Sure, sure. The great warrior Stan will come and save the day. Until then, let's continue." 

Cartman unclasps the left nipple clamp, then the right one. Kyle lets out his breath, his dick twitching in his pants at the feeling of having the clamps removed and the searing soreness that remains. He's weird; he knows he's weird. He's gotten in the habit of putting things up his ass. He's never lowered himself to imagining Cartman forcing him to do so, but the thought has crossed his mind, in terms of potential fantasies. It's disgusting, but also hotter than the old fantasies, the ones about Stan. Those all hurt so badly now, and it's real, deep pain, not the physical kind that Kyle gets off on.

"Hmmm," Cartman says, studying Kyle as he twirls the clamps around one finger. "What shall we do next? I know." He drops the clamps to the ground and approaches Kyle, hands outstretched. "Tickle torture." 

"Tickle -- are you fucking serious?" Kyle squirms, his shoulders going tense. He'd rather have something between him and Cartman's hands: a phallic object, another instrument of torture, anything but those fat fingertips. "Cartman, no!" 

But it's no use: Cartman drops to his knees in front of Kyle, almost giggling with delight, and begins a merciless assault on Kyle's bare chest. He tickles Kyle's ribs, his swollen nipples, and finally worms his fingers into Kyle's armpits. Kyle is screeching and thrashing, and finally he feels it: his left ankle slips free. He moves as quickly as possible, jamming his heel into Cartman's balls and then lifting his leg to kick him right between his meaty tits.

Cartman falls backward, making a gasping fish out of water sound and clutching at his balls, his eyes wide. Kyle realizes too late that this might not have been the smartest move, since he only has the one leg free to defend himself, his hands still bound tightly behind the chair. He pants his breath and watches Cartman slowly regain his. Kyle can still feel Cartman's squirmy touch all over his chest, crawling against his skin.

"You're fucking dead," Cartman says hoarsely, rising to his feet. "I was going easy on you, you Jew bitch, but now you're gonna fucking get it."

"Get what?" Kyle kicks at Cartman weakly, but he's out of range. "Gonna shove your dick in my mouth? You don't have the fucking balls." 

Cartman moves toward him with a growl, and Kyle is very glad that he's not unbuttoning his pants, though he'd almost meant to provoke him to do so, mostly for the chance to sink his teeth into Cartman's puny dick. Cartman must anticipate this, because he doesn't come near Kyle's mouth. He picks up the whole chair, and Kyle braces himself to be thrown, surprised that Cartman can lift his full weight. Instead of pitching the chair across the tent, Cartman flips it over and sets it down so that Kyle is facing the ground, on his knees, his forehead pressed into the dirt and the chair's back legs sticking up behind him. He's surprised when Cartman starts to untie his right leg as well, though not relieved. Whatever's about to happen is not going to be good, though Kyle's cock is throbbing with interest and leaking into his boxers. When his leg is freed he tries to crawl forward, but Cartman sits on his legs before he can. Kyle cries out in pain; Cartman is so heavy, bearing down on Kyle and fumbling with the chair.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Kyle asks, breathless with a disquieting combination of fear and arousal. "Cartman? What the fuck!" 

Kyle shrieks in pain when Cartman pushes the chair up over his head, taking Kyle's bound arms with it. It's an awkward angle that makes Kyle feel like his arms are going to pop out of their sockets, but he forgets that pain entirely when the first blow lands on his upturned ass.

"Stop!" Kyle cries when he's spanked again, so hard that he's afraid for a moment that he's going to vomit up the banana. "Cartman - ah-haaa! Stop, it's too hard!"

Cartman just grunts and spanks him harder, raining blows down on his ass, hitting him with relentless blows that make Kyle feel like his pants will split open. He sobs against the dirty tent floor and tries to spread his pinned legs, his cock so full now that it hurts, too. The crying only makes him more afraid that he'll come in his pants, because it feels good, this humiliation, the complete submission as his shoulders go slack and he presses his cheek to the floor, moaning and hiccuping, taking it. His asshole actually fucking itches: he wants something in it, wants Cartman to yank his pants down and slap his already brutalized skin raw, worm a finger up his itchy ass, stick a frozen banana up there, anything.

When Cartman stops hitting him Kyle is both immensely relieved and also disappointed, because he'd been approaching a place where he was barely himself, everything physical, all the mental energy drained out of him. He cries softly against the floor, eyes closed, and listens to Cartman's heavy breathing. Then he hears something else, in the distance: the war horn of the elf army. 

"Fuck," Cartman says, breathless. He coughs a few times and stands. Kyle's legs are numb from the weight of him; he won't be able to walk. "Here comes your boyfriend," Cartman says. He scoffs and puts his foot on Kyle's hip, tipping him onto his side. Kyle remembers the pain in his arms and cries out brokenly. He peeks up at Cartman, wondering what his own face looks like at the moment: streaked with tears, bright red, covered with dirt. Cartman looks angry but also defeated. "Did you come?" Cartman asks in a low, grumbling voice.

"Wh-what?" Kyle can barely make his own voice work. He presses his knees together and pulls them up toward his chest, moaning and wanting to fuck the heat of his own thighs. Outside the tent, he can hear the battle raging, fake swords clacking together and striking makeshift armor. "No," Kyle says, looking up at Cartman again. He sniffles. "I didn't. Did you?"

Cartman doesn't answer. He squats down beside Kyle and unties his arms. Kyle hisses when he's able to move them again; everything aches, especially his ass. He'll have bruises there; his skin is on fire and might have torn. He hugs his arms to his chest and whimpers when Cartman takes hold of his ankle, prying his legs apart. Kyle could kick him. He could scream for help. Stan will be here in five seconds anyway, after he breaks past Cartman's defensemen. Kyle really doesn't want Stan to see him like this. He hisses and opens his legs more widely when Cartman grips his cock through his pants.

"Open your eyes," Cartman says, and Kyle does, but just barely. They stare at each other while Cartman massages Kyle's cock roughly, jerking him through his pants. Kyle is close, shaking. He feels like his whole body has become a fire, and Cartman is either going to put it out for him or pour gasoline onto it. He's not even sure which he wants. "God, look at you," Cartman says when Kyle starts pressing his hips up, trying to fuck Cartman's grip. "Shameless fucking pain slut." 

Kyle growls in agreement and comes, humping Cartman's hand weakly as he fills his boxers. It's intense, so overwhelming that he feels like he's blacked out, but really he's just closed his eyes as it breaks through him in white hot waves. He's liquified afterward, so weak that he doesn't even try to move. He opens his eyes and sees Cartman hunched over him, still looking annoyed. Suddenly he thinks Cartman probably didn't come just from hitting him. 

"You fucking asshole!" Stan shouts as he throws open the tent flap, brandishing his sword. He puts the tip of it against Cartman's throat, as if it's a real sword. He looks angry enough to use a real blade to cut Cartman open. "Get away from him. Oh, god -- Kyle!"

"I'm okay," Kyle says miserably, sitting up. "Stand back, wizard." He waves his hand vaguely at Cartman, who moves away from Stan's sword. "Your plans are, uh. Foiled." 

"You're all dirty," Stan says, helping Kyle to his feet. "What-- what did you do to him?" he asks Cartman, shouting again. 

"He pushed me in the dirt and made me eat a banana," Kyle says hurriedly. "He'll pay for it dearly, but. I just want to go home. I don't want to play anymore." He slumps gladly into Stan's arms. This is always where he wants to be after he comes, wherever he was picturing himself before: held against Stan's chest, cradled in the warm security of him.

"This is against the rules, Cartman, you fuck!" Stan calls as they exit. "You can't kidnap Kyle!"

"Yeah, yeah," Cartman mutters from within the tent. "Get your fucking elves out of my backyard."

"Dude, are you okay?" Stan asks when they're walking home together, the other elves dispersed. "You're all unsteady. Looks like he kicked your ass." 

"Ha." Kyle resists the impulse to reach back and rub his stinging ass. He's looking forward to touching the bruises when he showers. "No, he's. He's not as tough as he thinks. He can't do shit to me." 

"Kyle, he roofied a brownie. Butters confessed to everything. That's pretty hardcore."

"Eh. I wasn't that impressed." 

Kyle weighs the validity of this statement as they walk. Was he impressed by what happened in the tent, impressed by Cartman? No, but he was interested. Fully present. Something. Stan is keeping close as they walk, keeping an eye on him, and Kyle likes this, too. 

"I'd better shadow you for a while," Stan says, as if he's read Kyle's thoughts. "Keep an eye on you. Keep him away." 

"I guess," Kyle says, elated. "Stan?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you have sex with Lola Perkins?"

"What? No. Oh, wait – yeah. But that was, uh. Before."

Before last summer, before Stan spent two months in a treatment center in Montana, where he rode horses, talked about his feelings and figured out which medication he should be taking for his clinical depression. He'd texted Kyle a couple of hours after they left the big end of the school year party, drunk and defenseless: _I think I'm going to do something I need help_. Kyle had known what the 'something' was, had called Sharon in a panic, had set the whole thing in motion. They haven't talked about it much, or told anyone. Kyle hooks his arm through Stan's, and they walk the rest of the way to Kyle's house like that.

"I really freaked out," Stan says at the end of Kyle's driveway. "When Butters told me he had you."

"He didn't _have_ me." It's a ridiculous thing to say – Kyle was tied to a chair – but it's still true. Even when Kyle was a naked slave in Cartman's bed, there was something in him that Cartman would never get to, never touch, and it's always going to be true.

"Just be careful," Stan says. He squeezes Kyle's shoulders, and Kyle is unsteady on his feet for half a second. What he wants is for Stan to be careful with him, but that may never happen, and somehow this other, awful, inverse desire has formed: to be manhandled by the least careful person he knows. Kyle shrugs.

"I'm the Elf King," he says. "Not some delicate flower." 

"Uh-huh. Go clean up, you're a mess."

"Disrespectful," Kyle says, and they grin at each other. For a second Kyle thinks Stan is going to give him a peck on the cheek, but he doesn't, maybe because Kyle's face is so dirty.

Inside, in the shower, Kyle touches the bruises on his ass and pokes his fingers into his still-sensitive nipples, hissing at the pain. He's made the water just a touch too hot, but he doesn't adjust it. There's the kind of toughness Stan has – good, sure, steady – and the toughness that Cartman has: reckless, mean, insatiable. And then there's this, the toughness Kyle has finally located in himself, the impenetrable core he felt hints of when he was willing to suffer forever for world peace. It's a private toughness, small but diamond hard, and there's a part of him that wants to know more of it, and to ask Cartman to hit him again, with his best shot.


End file.
